Cruise lines with the best — and worst — tipping policies

Many cruise lines have been quietly raising automatic gratuities, which means cruisers may be paying out more in tips to cruise staff.

In the past few years, many cruise lines (especially those originating in North America) have added an automatic gratuity policy — whereby tips for staff are automatically added to your bill — or have upped the amount they charge a day for automatic gratuity. For its most recent winter sailings, Oceania upped its automatic gratuities for guests in staterooms by more than 3% to $15 a day per guest and for those in more luxurious rooms by more than 7% to $22.50 a day per guest, and P&O Cruises just bumped up its daily automatic gratuity by nearly 13%. And last year, Royal Caribbean
RCL, +0.08%
— joining the likes of Carnival
CCL, +0.27%
and Norwegian
NCLH, +1.41%
— made its formerly optional tipping policy automatic and now guests pay $12 a day per person.

While these amounts look fairly reasonable on the surface, they can lead to a hefty tab — even on budget lines — that consumers need to prepare for.

The average automatic gratuity for a standard room on a larger, budget ship like Royal Caribbean or Norwegian is about $12 per person, a day (up from about $10 per person a day a couple of years ago), says Rich Tucker, the business development manager of CruiseDeals.com. That means a couple taking a seven-day cruise would shell out $168 for tips for dining and the cabin steward. You will pay this even if you eat at the buffet rather than have a sit-down dinner, says Colleen McDaniel, managing editor of Cruisecritic.com. Furthermore, if you’re staying in anything but a standard room, you should expect to pay even more.

Now have a few cocktails and you’ll see this automatic tip amount balloon even further. Since most ships (other than many luxury lines) automatically add a 15% gratuity to your bar tab, if you and your spouse each have three cocktails a day — at a price of roughly $8 apiece, which is common on budget cruise ships — you could end up with gratuities of $50 or more just on those drinks. Plus, some ships charge an automatic 18% gratuity for spa services or gym classes, so that could add to your bill too. All in, you could pay well over $200 in tips during that week — and that’s just what’s added to your bill automatically. Some people also tip on top of that. For example, there is often a line on your bar bill that allows you to add an extra tip, and many people do add a bit extra to help ensure they get the best and fastest service, especially at a popular pool bar where the bartender might typically be very busy. “It’s important when budgeting to know your cruise line’s tipping policy and budget accordingly,” says McDaniel.

For many travelers, automatic gratuities aren’t necessarily a bad thing: The rates are reasonable — especially compared with tipping at a sit-down restaurant with waiter service — though if you’re more of a fast-food kind of person, maybe not so much. And automatic gratuities make it easier for consumers in that they don’t have to count out moneys for each staff member who served them at the end of the trip, says Stewart Chiron, founder of CruiseGuy.com.

Still, many people find it frustrating that these charges are added to their bills automatically, rather than via their own discretion, and others want to minimize their gratuity costs (except for the people they want to tip independently) or avoid dealing with these extra charges via an all-in-one fare.

If you want to minimize automatic gratuities, Carnival, Princess and Holland America are often the cheapest, but not by much. These cruise lines charge $11.50 per person, a day; while Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Norwegian charge $12 per person, a day. In all cases, a 15% gratuity will be added to your bar tab.

It’s also important to note that the room you stay in matters: those in anything but standard rooms will typically pay more a day in automatic gratuities, so check with the cruise line to see what you can expect with your room. Outside of the U.S., many cruise lines do not have automatic tipping policies, says McDaniel, as other countries’ tipping customs are different than ours (and thus their staff is paid differently), so it may pay to look at cruises leaving from other countries and then look at their “suggested” tipping options.

There are also ways to skirt the automatic gratuities entirely: Luxury lines like Silversea, Regent Seven Seas and Crystal have an all-in-one price that includes gratuities (though you will pay higher fares for those tickets), with the exception of spa services, where an 18% gratuity is typically added. Even on lines that do charge automatic gratuities, you can sometimes avoid it, as some cruise deal sites will pay the gratuities for you when you book through them as a special promotion (these deals are often for Royal Caribbean and Celebrity, says Tucker.) Plus, if a staff member gives you really bad service, you can tell the cruise line (you’ll likely need to explain exactly what happened) and they may reimburse some of that automatic gratuity; note that the 15% automatic gratuity to the bartender is usually far less negotiable, says McDaniel.

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